Autonomous Bodies
How are our Bodies Ever Changing Based on our Social Landscapes
Autonomous Bodies is an interactive installation that explores the relationship between legislation, geography, safety, and bodily autonomy. U.S. states and many countries increasingly propose and pass laws that either affirm or encroach upon the bodily autonomy of many groups, from people who can become pregnant, to LGBTQ+ folks, to immigrants, to the incarcerated, to unhoused people, to the rights of bodies of land and water. This legislation is creating a national and global patchwork in which rights to bodily autonomy and safety vary state by state, and country by country, with historically marginalized groups and intersections of those groups disproportionately affected. At the same time, digital technologies, like telehealth, are complicating the geographic reach of such legislation, and might offer a means of claiming and reclaiming rights to bodily autonomy and, thus, to more safety.